HOMESTEAD

The home place; the place where the home is. It is the home, the house and the adjoining land, where the head of the family dwells; the home farm. The fixed residence of the head of a family, with the land and buildings surrounding the main house. Technically, however, and under the modern homestead laws, a homestead is an artificial estate in land, devised to protect the possession and enjoyment of the owner against the claims of his creditors, by withdrawing the property from execution and forced sale, so long as the land is occupied as a home. Buckingham v. Buckingham, 81 Mich. 89, 45 N. W. 504; Campbell v. Moran, 71 Neb. 615, 99 N. W. 499; Iken v. Olenick, 42 Tex. 198; Jones v. Britton, 102 N. C. 166, 9 S. E. 554, 4 L. R. A. 178; Thomas v. Fulford, 117 N. C. 667, 23 S. E. 635; Elllnger v. Thomas, 64 Kan. 180, 67 Pac. 529; Galligher v. Smiley, 28 Neb. 189, 44 N. W. 187, 26 Am. St. Rep. 319. Business homestead. In Texas, a place or property (distinct from the home of a family) used and occupied by the head of a family as a place to exercise his calling or business, which is exempt by law. Alexander v. Lovitt (Tex. Civ. App.) 56 S. W. 6S6; Ford v. Fosgard (Tex. Civ. App.) 25 S. W. 448. A curious misnomer, the word “homestead” in this phrase having lost entirely its original meaning, and being retained apparently only for the sake ot its remote and derivative association with the idea of an exemption. Homestead corporations. Corporations organized for the purpose of acquiring lands in large tracts, paying off incumbrances thereon, improving and subdividing them into homestead lots or parcels, and distributing them among the shareholders, and for the accumulation of a fond for such purposes. Civ. Code Cal.